Summary

  • Side activities in open-world games enhance player immersion, making them feel like a part of the world.
  • Exploration in open-world games can be relaxing and rewarding, offering downtime for contemplation.
  • Activities like hunting, fishing, joyriding, camping, companionship, and farming add depth and realism to open-world settings.

Open-world games are all about immersion. The world might be huge, the details might be astounding, the combat might be incredible, but if players don't feel connected to the world, like their every move brings with it some change or consequence, no matter how tiny, then the game will fail to connect with anyone. Open-world titles need to highlight the aspects of the world that make it seem real in order to give the setting life, and side activities are a great way to do this.

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Most open-world games, regardless of whether they're sprawling epics or smaller in scope, feature optional activities that can help truly make a game pop. Rubbing shoulders with the average people in a game's setting, spending time with companions, and engaging in leisurely activities that stray away from the main quest and its contents are all great ways for players to not just feel like they're inside a world, but actively a part of it. In particular, these side activities feature prominently in many fantastic open-world games, and are a great way to wind down from the rigors of combat that usually make up the brunt of the main quests.

6 Exploration

Setting Off In A Random Direction Can Be Incredibly Satisfying

Open World Games That Do Exploration Well:

  • The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
  • Red Dead Redemption 2
  • No Man's Sky
  • Fallout 4

Exploration is often both perilous and satisfying in open-world titles, but that really says more about the destination rather than the journey. The best exploration-centric open-world games give players plenty of downtime where they can simply wander the wilds or the city in quiet contemplation. Sometimes, this activity might be semi-mandatory in order to get to new areas in the main storyline, but exploring in this way—by simply wandering the overworld—can still be done optionally when fast travel would make for a quicker arrival.

Fantasy titles usually do this kind of exploration best, though some titles with the fantasy aesthetic tend to have environments that feel a bit samey, while games that have urban or sci-fi environments can do quite well in promoting a diverse overworld to wander through.

5 Hunting And Fishing

Great For Quiet Thinking And Observing Nature

Open World Games That Do Hunting And/Or Fishing Well:

  • The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
  • Red Dead Redemption 2
  • Dragon's Dogma 2
  • Stardew Valley

Hunting is a bit of a gray area, morally speaking, but in video games, it can be a great time for wandering quiet, expansive, and wooded areas, tracking down majestic creatures, and ensuring every part of them is at least put to good use. A game needs to have a good—or at least passable—combat system for hunting to be enjoyable, and so many games that do this right often have an action focus.

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Fishing only doubles down on what hunting offers, with long stretches of peace broken by the pulling at the line. For the more faint-of-heart players, fishing often isn't as visceral as hunting, and it's a great way to acquire food or crafting resources in games that care about those things.

4 Joyriding

Race Through Open Wilderness Or City Streets

Open World Games That Do Joyriding Well:

  • Grand Theft Auto 5
  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Far Cry 5
  • Forza Horizon 5

Whether players need to clear their heads or their character's head, driving around without a goal in mind, either within or outside typical road laws, has been a pastime among players of open-world games for decades now. Titles like the GTA series or the many open-world racing games leave players plenty of time to put the storyline behind them and simply cruise along the roads.

Games like Cyberpunk 2077 offer the perfect blend of any sort of joyriding the player might be after. Want to accrue a litany of fines as while coursing through Night City at twice the speed limit on the wrong side of the road? Want to quietly drive through the outskirts of the city and find a good place to watch the sun set on the whole metropolis from afar? These two things and anything in between are an option, but they require a bit of a relaxing drive to get there.

3 Camping

Share A Fire Under The Stars

Open World Games That Do Camping Well:

  • Dragon's Dogma 2
  • The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (with Creation Club)
  • Outward
  • Red Dead Redemption 2

Many of the best open-world games feature camping as a means of not just restoring health and resources, but as a way to help break up long journeys and take in the wilderness of a setting. It's a great way to add some realism and depth to an open world, and it provides immersive ways to pass the time besides using a wait button or fast traveling.

While this is a relaxing side activity in many of the games where it's featured, it's important to note that camping in the wilderness with these games, especially in titles like Dragon's Dogma 2, can present its own host of issues, as not everything else in the world settles down for a relaxing evening when the sun goes down.

2 Spending Time With Companions

Keeping Good Company Can Be Very Relaxing

Open World Games That Do Companions Well:

  • Fallout 4
  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Stardew Valley
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Open-world games have played host to some incredible companion-driven stories that are perfect for those who want to divert from the main content and spend some time getting to know a truly well-realized character.

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While games like Stardew Valley and Cyberpunk 2077 don't necessarily have companions following players around for long stretches of the game, they do involve characters that have a fluid relationship with the player, one that can be enhanced (or undermined) with the right player actions.

1 Farming

Enjoy A Simple Life Of Harvesting

Open World Games That Do Farming Well:

  • Minecraft
  • Slime Rancher 2
  • Stardew Valley
  • Rune Factory 5

Is there anything quite as satisfying as getting up early, tending to a field of crops and feeding animals, only to stop, wipe the sweat off, and watch the sun rise over a lush, fertile farmland? Ask any farmer, and they'll say that these moments of satisfaction are wedged between bouts of hard labor and administration, but the appeal of an idyllic farm life is much more obvious in video game form.

The massive boom in cozy farming games didn't happen for no reason, and many open-world titles have tried to capture the magic and beauty of quiet, contented agriculture in different ways. Minecraft offers a farming experience as expansive as the rest of the game, while Slime Rancher 2 is about farming an entirely different type of creature. In both cases, while the yield may be different, the act itself is deeply calming.

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